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In our Newsletter
17/2013 , we presented novelties introduced into Serbian transfer pricing
regulations by the new Rulebook on Transfer Pricing and Arm's Length Methods
Applicable to Determination of Prices in Transactions Between Related Entities
(" Rulebook "), which elaborates on
the statutory requirement for mandatory transfer pricing documentation for FY
2013 and onwards.

On 20 November 2013, the Bosnian Competition Council issued a decision establishing
that the Serbian brewery "Apatinska" abused its dominant position on
the relevant market of beer distribution in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The
Council imposed a fine on the brewery in the amount of BAM 430,000 (EUR
215,000).

The High Court in Belgrade and the Appellate Court in the same
city have issued a few decisions in 2013 rejecting arguments by the
defendants that their use of photographs, without the authorization of
the copyright owners, was lawful because the photos were used within the
context of reporting about current events. While the outcome in each
case was identical, the judgments differ in the interpretation of the
law. A reader is left unsure as to what the Serbian copyright law
actually says about the current events exception to copyright infringement.

Amendments to the Serbian Law on Protection of Competition
were published in the Official Gazette on 31 October 2013 and will come
into force on 8 November 2013. The adopted amendments to a large extent
follow solutions from the draft which
the Government submitted to the Parliament back in July this year. We
devoted two earlier blog posts to various drafts of the amendments
(apart from the Government's July draft , we also analyzed the initial draft
published in April). Now that the amendments have ripened into law, it
is worth providing an overview of the most important changes to the
competition legislation.

The Serbian Commission for Protection of Competition has published
its Annual
Report for 2012 . Because the Commission publishes its decisions and
opinions randomly, the report offers an informative scan of the authority’s
activities in the course of the previous year.

The Commission for Protection of Competition has issued an opinion(1) on public procurement and
consortium agreements concluded between competitors in tendering and public procurement
procedures.
The commission views consortium agreements as restrictive agreements, as they inevitably set
prices and other commercial requirements for performing specific transactions. Therefore, such
agreements must be submitted to the commission for an individual exemption.

In February 2013 the Competition Authority cleared the takeover of Hellenic Sugar Industry SA by
Sunoko doo, subject to structural and behavioural measures. Hellenic Sugar is the only producer
of sugar in Greece which also owns two sugar production plants in Serbia. Sunoko, on the other
hand, is a producer of sugar in Serbia, part of MK Group, a vertically integrated producer of
agricultural products and also has various other activities related to agricultural production. The
authority prohibited the takeover at first, but clearance was issued on a second attempt.

This guide provides corporate counsel and international practitioners with a comprehensive worldwide legal analysis of the laws and regulations of mergers and acquisitions. This article appeared in the 2013 edition of The International Comparative Legal Guide to: Mergers & Acquisitions; published by Global Legal Group Ltd, London. www.iclg.co.uk.